A Democratic state senator’s graphic speech last week on sexual harassment at the Colorado Capitol is drawing anger from across the aisle, with Republicans criticizing his explicit language and alleging that the male lawmaker has on several occasions been found in a women’s restroom.

Denver Post file

State Rep. Daniel Kagan.

The legislator, state Sen. Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, said he made an honest mistake — one time — last year as a freshman member of the Senate when he entered an unmarked bathroom. He says Republicans are trying to deflect from sexual harassment allegations against their own.

“They’re more than overblowing it,” Kagan said. “They are trying to make a zeppelin out of it. This was an innocent mistake and it is really beneath the dignity of the Senate to start trying to, firstly, misrepresent, or should I say, lie, that this happened more than once … and to try and blow it up like this is reprehensible.”

But later Monday, Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik, R-Thornton, filed a formal workplace harassment complaint against Kagan alleging that she confronted him in the women’s bathroom toward the end of last year’s legislative session.

“What happened at the mic on Friday was despicable,” Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Cañon City, told reporters earlier Monday. “I had people coming to me Friday telling me — these are not people that are snowflakes or prudes or anything like that — these are people that come to me and were visibly shaken, emotionally upset over what they heard. And coming from this individual, that is known, known to frequent, habitually … the women’s restroom.”

Kagan could not immediately be reached Monday evening to respond to the allegations from Martinez Humenik, which do not appear to claim sexual misconduct.

Democrats have been making speeches on the Senate floor about sexual harassment and Baumgardner, with some women legislators talking about their own unsavory experiences in the statehouse. But Kagan’s remarks — he was citing state statute — went a step further, describing in graphic detail different crimes that include sexual transgressions.

Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, called his speech “repulsive.”

“When Senator Kagan is up there slobbering at the microphone about his details on this or that — it was just too much,” Hill said. “The hypocrisy of this guy who has been known — I mean I know it’s been known. This is a guy who has multiple times has been found in the women’s restroom.”

Hill recounted a time last year — though he said he couldn’t recall exactly when — that he took his two young daughters to use the women’s restroom just off the Senate floor — the restroom is unmarked — where he said that Kagan was exiting.

An unmarked men’s restroom is also a few feet away. Signage on the doors doesn’t make clear that either is a restroom.

Kagan said he was confused by the two bathrooms’ proximity and lack of markings. “It was embarrassing,” he said. “And it’s the kind of embarrassing mistake you don’t make twice.”

Martinez Humenik, who said she filed her complaint only after hearing about Hill’s experience, said she is sure hers was later in the session. Speaking in an interview with The Denver Post, she said she saw men’s shoes in a stall next to her and waited in the bathroom for the man — Kagan — to come out and confronted him.

“I said, ‘What are you doing in here?’ ” Martinez Humenik she said. She said he told her he was feeling unwell.

She added: “He’s been in the Capitol long enough to know where the correct facilities are. … I just want to see the behavior changed.” She said she wants to see better signage on the restrooms as well.

On the left, an unmarked bathroom for women just outside of the Colorado Senate’s floor. A few feet away is an unmarked bathroom for men, pictured right. The women’s bathroom door has signs that say “SENATORS AND SENATE STAFF ONLY” and “Private.” The men’s bathroom just has a room number.

In comments before the complaint was filed, Kagan said Republicans, who control the Senate, are trying to make something of nothing for political reasons. As for his speech Friday, Kagan said he was speaking on an uncomfortable subject and the GOP’s calls for a criminal probe of sexual harassment at the statehouse.

“I know it’s uncomfortable talking about these sexual assaults,” he said. “But it’s not half as uncomfortable as being a victim of one. And we’ve got to talk about these things. I was quoting the statute. I was quoting the language of the law.”

Grantham said Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, has been made aware of the allegations against Kagan. “Yes, he’s gone in there with people in that restroom,” Grantham said, “people that are now uncomfortable. … We have people that don’t feel safe going in there.”

Guzman, meanwhile, blasted the GOP for the bathroom allegations, saying Kagan “accidentally used the wrong bathroom near the Senate floor.”

“There is absolutely no equivalence to Sen. Baumgardner using his position of power to repeatedly, physically harass a legislative aide,” she said in a written statement. “This accusation is a shameful attempt by Republicans to distract from very real incidents of sexual harassment at the Capitol.”

(A spokesman for Democratic leadership in the House could not immediately be reached Monday night to respond to the Martinez Humenik complaint, news of which broke later in the day.)

Republicans said one of their concerns about Kagan’s speech involves the fact that children visit the Senate by children.

When Sen. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, on Monday made the Democrats’ daily request for action on the resolution to expel Baumgardner, Senate President Pro Tem Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, rushed his young visiting grandchildren out of the chamber, telling them they couldn’t listen.

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